At 2:33 PM -0500 5/24/07, Les Mikesell wrote: >Tony Nelson wrote: >> I'm setting up a server with CentOS (well, a test server (a Qemu VM), a >> main server, and a backup server (both Xen slices)), one each with CentOS >> 4.4, 4.5, and 5.0, and it all works. It's also one more version of CentOS >> than I was expecting, as the test server got suddenly upgraded to CentOS >> 4.5 during a 200 MB update. I then found the FAQ that explained that >> CentOS does this a few times a year, and that the old point releases are >> archives that won't receive any more updates; that is, to get security >> updates one has to accept all the updates and version upgrades. This isn't >> quite what I expected for a "stable" OS; rather it's more like Fedora (6), >> which also just got a large update. > >Fedora gives you all the updates, all the time. RHEL/Centos give you >security updates as soon as possible, batching the less critical >bugfixes into point releases and rarely including updates that modify >intended behavior. OK. >> Does RHEL work this way also? Or does RH provide security updates for, >> e.g., RHEL 4.4 now that 4.5 is out? > >I think there is some difference in the repository handling but it's >basically the same if you want to stay up to date. That is you can't >get the security-only parts of 4.5 or beyond without taking the >bugfixes, but you do have the choice to update only certain programs. That choice would be mostly by hand yum-updating, right? Do a yum update, sa "no", pick the parts I want and yum update package1 package2? >> Am I just missing something? I'm new to setting up and maintaining servers. > >The 4.5 updates were unusual if not shocking in including changes that >affect device naming and interface selection order in some machines. >Makes me feel better about being too lazy to update a lot of machines >still happily runing 3.8 with no problems... When I can figure out how >to make Sun java work with tomcat, etc., I'll jump all the up to a 5.x >version. My theory has always been that Linux kernels become stable >somewhere around the X.X.20 release... (At least when there was an >odd-numbered unstable version for development - maybe 2.6 will never >stabilize). OK. The 4.5 update was the first one I experienced. I have been thinking that there might be some advantage to using the trailing edge for this project, as you do, but I can probably deal with the changes. -- ____________________________________________________________________ TonyN.:' <mailto:tonynelson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> ' <http://www.georgeanelson.com/>
